The Sole Purpose of Turning the Hearts of Young People Against Books
This is a reply to a fan letter written by Forrest J Ackerman to Edgar Rice Burroughs. I reprint to emphasize the point that reading the corrosive, dreary, and hellish books assigned to my highschoolers to help them in their homework has driven me to the same conclusion.
On an unrelated topic: Just last night, I was reading the seventh and final Pellucidar book in Edgar Rice Burrough’s series, SAVAGE PELLUCIDAR, written in 1963. (AT THE EARTH’S CORE was published in 1914, for the record.)
The men who had captured Dian had only just arrived and her captor had taken her to his cave.
“Now,” he said, “I am going to give you the beating I promised you. It will teach you to behave.” He seized her by the hair and, stooping, picked up a short stick; and as he stooped Dian snatched her bronze dagger that the man had taken from her from the sheath at his side, and as he raised the stick she plunged it into his heart. With a scream he clutched at his breast; and then Dian gave him a push that sent him out of the cave to topple over the ledge and fall to the ground below.
The next time you hear some politically correct yahoo mouthing off about how women in older stories are nothing but housewives or damsels in distress, remember this character from 1914, a cavegirl armed with a bronze knife, who is ready to plunge her blade into the soft, black and craven heart of any social justice warrior attempting , Orwell style, to make her into an unperson and say she and characters like her never existed.
Stuff and nonsense. Your grandmothers were tougher than you, pioneers and country girls, and they way they acted in old stories reflects this.
Remember Dian the Beautiful.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
